How to Lock Documents in Word 2016

Sometimes you may need to send your finished Word document to your supervisor and in case of malicious copying or editing by others, you can lock some specified section of the document or even the whole Word document. Here I would show you some ways to lock document in Word 2016.

Lock Specified Section of A Document in Word 2016

Step 1: Navigate to the part of the document you like to lock and click Layout item on the top ribbon, find and click Breaks in its subcategories. Then select Continuous in the coming menu list.

Step 2: Just click Review item on the ribbon. Then you should find and click Restrict Editing to open the Restrict Editing panel in the right part of the window.

Step 3: In the Restrict Editing panel, just find the Editing restriction section and check Allow only this type of editing in the document. Then select Filling in form in the under drop-down menu. Then click Select sections link option and choose the corresponding section you like to lock.

Step 4: Navigate to Start enforcement section in the bottom of the Restrict Editing panel and click Yes, Start Enforcing Protection button. In the coming dialog, just make a password and click OK so that others can’t edit the corresponding section.

Note: Once you enable the restrict editing, then you want to disable it, you can also navigate to the Restrict Editing panel and click Stop Protection and type the password to make the document editable again.

Lock the Whole Document in Word 2016

If you want to totally lock one document in Word 2016 and not share it with others, just follow this way.

Step 1: After you finish editing a Word document, just navigate to the File item on the ribbon and click Info on the right panel of the coming window. Select Encrypt with Password after clicking Protect Document icon.

Step 2: When the encrypt document pop up, just type the password you like and repeat the password to confirm it.

Note: You should be aware of that once you encrypt a document in Word 2016, you should store the password in a proper way in case of forgetting the password. If you unfortunately forget the password, don't feel panic, just refer to office 2016 forgotten password recovery.